


Anachronism

by WanderingAlice



Series: Anagnorisis [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:06:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingAlice/pseuds/WanderingAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wakes up, and is a man out of time</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anachronism

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth part in my series Anagnorisis, and the last before the major parts. It features Steve waking up in New York, and is meant to link the previous parts to the next one- "Anagnorisis", which will focus on the events of The Winter Soldier. 
> 
> It is not necessary to have read the previous parts, but if you enjoy this they might be worth a look!

Steve Rogers opened his eyes. That in and of itself was strange. He was supposed to be dead. How had he survived? Moreover- he didn’t feel wounded at all. A crash like his, putting that plane into the water, should have thrown him from the chair. Even with his enhanced physiology, the force of the crash should have broken most of his bones. Failing that, the debris should have hit him, causing any number of lacerations and cuts. He should have drowned after that, the cold water rushing in through every hole. But here he was, alive and unharmed.

Maybe he’d been unconscious, he reasoned. If he’d been in a coma until just recently, he could have healed. His body did recover extremely fast. But it still made no sense. Why wasn’t he dead?

He registered the room he was in. It all looked fairly standard, right down to the radio sitting on the dresser. The radio, playing a baseball game. Steve remembered that game. Remembered Bucky’s leg pressed against his, Bucky’s arm over his shoulders, popcorn and soda, a warm spring day. The game on the radio couldn’t possibly be the one currently being played, because it was one he had been at- sitting in the stands behind third base, sketching the players in between cheers.

A nurse entered the room, and Steve knew something was up. He couldn’t really say how, but he knew she wasn’t what she pretended to be. He called her on it, and men in strange uniforms entered the room. Steve threw them through the wall and ran, noticing the ‘view’ out his window had been some kind of movie set. The hallway he entered was too sleek and shiny, and the windows made it doubtful it was some kind of secret base. _Where was he_?

Outside, the sky was getting dark. But that wasn’t easy to see, when the whole street was lit up like the fourth of July. Cars drove past, but they were wrong, the lines too clean, the paint too glossy. People stared at him as he ran, but they were wrong too. Their clothes, their hair, all of it was wrong. He’d never seen this place before. But he _had_. He _knew_ it.

Large cars surrounded him, blocking off his escape. He turned, looking for a way out. He had to get back, people were counting on him-!

“At ease, soldier,” a voice said, and Steve found a tall man in an eye-patch watching him. He listened to what the man was saying, still trying to make sense of where he was. And then, the stranger explained it all in a sentence that rocked his world out from underneath him. “You’ve been asleep, Cap. For Almost seventy years.”

Seventy years. That would explain the cars, and the lights, and the people. He looked around, trying to think. Seventy years. What would this place have looked like… and it hit him. He was standing in Time’s Square. He was back in New York.

“You goanna be ok?” the man asked, and Steve wanted to laugh. Ok? How could he possibly be ok? He’d been going to join Bucky, going to find out what there was beyond this life.

“Yeah. It’s just… I had a date.”

 

Life moved on. Steve was absorbed into SHIELD, an organization Nick Fury told him Peggy had helped to found. He went on missions. He did his job. People told him he was adjusting well. He made a list of things he had missed, trying them and crossing them off it one by one. He considered buying a sketchbook and rejected it. He didn’t feel much like drawing anymore.

He met Howard’s son, Tony, and he was just like Howard, only more broken. He reminded Steve too much of his old friend, and it seemed Steve reminded Tony too much of Howard. They fought each other, and then they fought together. Suddenly, Tony was calling him at odd times, meeting up for odd-sounding foods he thought they should try, showing Steve his newest inventions or just checking up on him. It was… nice. To have a friend. They both had raw edges, but that was ok. Steve didn’t ask why Tony was so self-destructive, and Tony never asked why Steve never let anyone closer than arm’s distance. It was an odd sort of friendship, but it worked.

Steve moved to Washington DC. New York held too many memories, and Steve felt it was safer to leave it in the past. His heart still felt frozen, but that was for the best. This country didn’t need Steve Rogers, it needed Captain America. And maybe Steve Rogers was too broken inside, so he locked himself beneath the ice. He’d be what America needed him to be, no more, no less. Tony understood.

Natasha didn’t. She kept on him, trying to get him to open up, trying to get him to find a date. She was a good friend, when she wasn’t being a good spy, but her habit of trying to fix him up with someone would have irritated a saint. But he didn’t want to date, or fall in love. It would all just be ripped away from him again. Safer, by far, to avoid that kind of commitment. Still, he liked Natasha. She filled in the gaps Tony and missions didn’t. He thought Bucky would have liked her. She did her best to get him back in the world, and he was grateful.

The rest of the Avengers were good people. Steve trusted them, even Thor, who he hadn’t been sure of at first. Fighting Loki with them, he almost felt like he was back with the SSR, working with his commandos to take down Hydra. But every time he looked over his shoulder, he saw Natasha instead of Bucky. Tony, instead of Howard. Bruce, Thor and Clint instead of Dum Dum, Morita, Jones, Dernier, and Falsworth.

Yes, life moved on. And it carried Steve with it. He could function in this new time, do his job, and protect people. He cleaned up Fury’s and SHIELD’s messes. But he was still adrift, lost. A man out of time. A man without an anchor.

**Author's Note:**

> Part Five of Anagnorisis will be up in two weeks! If you enjoyed the story so far, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know! Thanks for reading!


End file.
